Dan Bell, vice president of sports and entertainment at Oracle Hospitality, explains how his company is at the forefront of the hotel industry's initiative to turn data into profits.
Technology is transforming all aspects of the sports industry, and one sector that has undergone particularly radical changes as a result is hospitality.
Advances in connectivity infrastructure in stadiums and stadiums have opened up new opportunities for operators to work in smarter and more sophisticated ways, which in turn has revolutionized the game day experience for both regular and guest viewers VIP.
For companies like Oracle Corporation, the giant of American multinational computer technology, hospitality is an area of the sports business that can benefit significantly through innovative applications of technology. Oracle Hospitality, its hospitality division, offers a range of software, hardware and related services for the industry, working with clients from sectors such as food and beverages, hotels and resorts, casinos and games, cruises and sports and entertainment.
Based in Columbia, Maryland, Oracle Hospitality has developed a variety of solutions that range from cloud backend services and event management software to point-of-sale (POS) tablets and other hardware specifically designed for the stadium environment. In sports, its client base includes teams, venues and dealerships on both sides of the Atlantic, including Miami Marlins baseball teams, the Hamburg Barclaycard Arena and food service management companies such as Delaware North, Aramark and Centreplate.
Although now well established in the industry, Oracle Hospitality dramatically improved its sports and entertainment capabilities when it acquired MICROS Systems Inc, a provider of integrated software and hardware solutions for the hospitality industry and the retail industry, in 2014. The acquisition brought with it more than 35 years of experience in sports and entertainment at Oracle fold, and the company has been investing heavily in space ever since.
Much of that investment has gone into developing new forms of software and hardware designed to ensure perfect operation of food and beverages, an important aspect of the general experience of the fans that, according to Dan Bell, vice president of sports and entertainment at Oracle Hospitality, has sometimes been overlooked in favor of more attractive and attractive elements.
"One of the most important things is the speed of service, we catch the fans quickly and do not miss any of the events," says Bell. "That could mean either a traditional concession line or seat service with a tablet-type device, I could be working with a colleague to place the order on the seat and deliver it to the seat." Kiosks seem to be arriving every time. more to play for self-ordered in the stadiums too ".
45 percent of attendees at events around the world left the lines because the wait was too long: the Experience Report of the fans of Oracle 2016
Bell's comments are evident in the findings of Oracle's 2016 Fan Experience Report, which found that 45 percent of attendees around the world left the lines because the wait was too long. The same investigation found that almost two-thirds of the fans 'would probably use' or 'definitely' use the order on the seat if they were available at their stadium, while more than half indicated that they would consider using a mobile application to order and pay for them. food and beverages to be collected from an express line.
Those results should arouse the interest of local teams and operators looking to improve their viewing experience, says Bell. The Oracle report points out how reducing wait times can generate direct ROI and how the use of mobile technology to improve order and payment can boost sales, especially since fans from all the countries surveyed said they would spend up to 30% more on average. if the waiting times were reduced by half.
But satisfying the hunger and thirst of an increasingly impatient customer base is only part of the story. For local operators, Bell says, the beauty of software like Oracle's Simphony Venue Management system is that its back-end capabilities can be customized and integrated into third-party mobile devices or digital menu boards, further streamlining the operation of food and drinks. In addition, you can also align with Oracle technology products to drive customers to other offers, such as ticket promotions and loyalty programs.
"It provides a great infrastructure and we have opened our APIs to our partners," says Bell. "If another place has a particular idea of how to improve or increase the speed of the service, we work with that place or partner to try to make it a reality."
Another advantage is that Oracle's software is rooted in the cloud, which improves operational efficiency, while reducing investment for local operators and opening up new opportunities for smaller organizations. "We can reach places that we have not traditionally been able to reach," says Bell (left). "Things like minor league baseball have been opened, or they could be colleges and universities."
He adds: "That really has opened things up from a market perspective in the sense that the IT demands of a stadium operator diminish if they are willing to go to the cloud because we manage the entire IT back-end for them. They do not have to worry about things like PCI security and refreshing servers and things like that. "
By combining those capabilities in the cloud with the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Bell says Oracle Hospitality has positioned itself at the "cutting edge" of the hospitality industry's drive to turn data into profit. The strategy, he explains, has been to apply Oracle's state-of-the-art data analytics capabilities to the food and beverage industry, bringing data scientists, database engineers and seasoned hospitality consultants to an industry where margins are visible. constantly restricted.
One way to do this is through its new product Data Science Cloud Services, which analyzes a large amount of information in real time, monitors sales data, guests, marketing and staff performance to generate ideas that can be used to optimize efficiency and increase revenues.
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By analyzing the behavior and preferences of customers, the technology allows food and beverage managers to evaluate menus and identify improvements, highlighting the best possible direct sales or cross-selling options by location or time of day. Meanwhile, an integrated Adaptive Forecast service allows operators to predict stock and labor needs at each location, using variables such as weather, type of event, time of day and day of the week to identify appropriate levels of inventory and personnel.
"This is really great for me because it goes beyond the doorbell of an order, you know, a hot dog, a beer and chips," says Bell. "It really does more backend analysis to meet the fans, ticket holders, members of loyalty a lot, much better in terms of what their patrons have been when ordering food on the spot.
"Later we can join that in ticketing solutions that we have, we can make an offer for them: if, for example, you enter the park at a certain moment, you get a special promotion." Therefore, it provides that artificial intelligence capacity to the solutions and I think it's a really innovative offer that we have now and we're very excited. "
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